Observations on economics, the academy, the wider world, and things that run on rails.

22.1.16

THE PUNDITRY IS UNPRODUCTIVE.

I frequently complain about boring public affairs programming with the same talking heads swapping the same talking points under pictures of the Capitol dome.

Overnight, a collection of contributors to National Review, some of whom are among those talking heads and some of whom aspire to be, pronounced anathema on Donald J. Trump for, inter alia, being late to the conservative cause, or being a crude populist rather than a conservative. That gives Mr Trump the opportunity to expand the scope of his bragging about not being politically correct.

Many or even most of the people who make a living working in politics and political commentary—even those who think of themselves as outsiders, such as nonpartisan libertarians—inevitably begin to view their field as one dedicated primarily to ideas, ideology, philosophy, policy, and so forth, and NOT to the emotional, ideologically unmoored cultural passions of a given (and perhaps fleeting) moment. Donald Trump—and more importantly, his supporters, who go all but unmentioned here (Ben Domenech is an exception)—illustrate that that gap is, well, yuuge.

Eight years of national greatness conservatism followed by eight years of hope and change will do that to people. And the people are rising up angry. It's not just the gentry liberals who are scared. "Perhaps the smugness really is fear. Promises to be an eventful year."

Here's Mr Welch.

Trump is nobody's conservative, but it's not at all clear that many voters really care about such things. His rise is a rebuke to the stories that political commentators have long told themselves, and to the mores they have long shared even while otherwise disagreeing ideologically with one another. You can despise Donald Trump (and oh Lord I do), and appreciate National Review's efforts here, while simultaneously wondering whether his forcible removal of a certain journalistic mask might also have some benefit.